re: #476 negativ

One lesson everyone should be learning by now (and boy, is it hard to get people to go along with me on this) is to use public key encryption wherever possible for any emails you wouldn’t want your kids/parents/boss/spouse/neighbor/dog/etc to see. You wouldn’t mail a confidential letter without an envelope, so why treat email any differently?

There are all sorts of ways to implement it that are free and easy. It just comes down to getting people to understand why it’s good practice.

Another good practice, frankly, would be to insist that scientists corresponding on research matter conduct themselves in a professional manner. The style seen in the CRU emails would be totally unacceptable at most corporations these days, and some of them would lead to warnings or even write ups if found in such an environment. Academia runs a much more casual ship, but as I’ve said all along, appearances matter, and the off-the-cuff snark and banter is now biting these researchers in the ass, regardless of their intent.

It isn’t too much to ask employees - and that includes researchers - to keep their correspondence succinct, to the point and free of superfluous commentary.